This could get interesting.
TNT is expected to announce Monday that it will begin showing “Southland,” the critically acclaimed but abruptly canceled NBC police drama, starting in January. With the move, “Southland” becomes the rare TV series to be dropped by a broadcaster and revived by a cable outlet, where it will compete at 10 p.m. with NBC’s “The Jay Leno Show.”
via NYTimes.com.
Update: TNT has made the announcement, the show will air on Tuesdays at 10pm beginning January 12.
If you do click through to the entire article let me correct this from the first line:
the big but shrinking broadcast networks and the small but growing cable networks
Individual cable networks viewership is still smaller than most of the broadcast networks (although several are already larger than the CW), but collectively there have been more viewers in primetime for ad supported cable networks than broadcast networks for quite some time.
First!
just kidding, i hate those people.
I don’t think southland will beat Leno, cause season one didn’t do that good and presumably they will air season one again first.
I hope it does well though.
When else was TNT going to put it?
J.R., I am surprised that TNT is getting it on the schedule as early as January.
Didn’t I suggest that as a fanciful possibility when it was first announced that TNT was looking to pick it up? Of course I did. As to whether it will be beat Leno or not, I guess that will depend on what its real opposition will be on which night. As things might be in January, it could have a fair chance at beating Leno on Tuesday or Wednesday, where ABC is pretty weak on both those nights, with Friday being a long shot. Then again, which actual night of those two or three will also depend on what other cable networks might be offering by way of scripted fare.
The January date has been tossed around a lot recently, so it looks like the predictions that the yet-to-air episodes would air in February or March are correct.
I’m betting the Leno show outrates it and BINGO will ensue (TNT didn’t promote the show heavily enough, it didn’t get The Closer lead-in, etc)
Sad to see that Brian has now entered the realm of “I must bring up the rare revival of a broadcast show on a cable network even if it’s not necessarily true!”
Unless I’m missing something, the show won’t be “revived” until more episodes are ordered, which Stelter does more or less note hasn’t happened yet near the very bottom of the article.
i hope they crush jay leno!
The reason why TNT isn’t using The Closer as a lead in for SouthLAnd is because Men of a Certain Age is getting that treatment but I wouldn’t be surprised if MOACA is used as a promotional tool for SouthLAnd and given that it’s got Ray Romano in it, I would say Men of a Certain Age has a good chance of getting 5-6m when it airs.
The news about SouthLAnd doesn’t bode well for Raising the Bar or Dark Blue.
The only problem with this news is that now fans of cancelled shows will be pestering cable networks to pick their show.
Is TNT getting some sort of massive financial discount for the show? It seems more than a little bizarre that they think the show makes financial sense for them while NBC apparently cannot afford it.
Or is NBC just even more screwed up than we ever could have imagined?
oh the irony
Schmoker, the NYT reports NBC was paying $1.6m/episode in license fee and TNT will pay 1.4/1.5. Of course, that’s all corporate transfer payments, TNT and Warner Brothers are Time Warner businesses, so that number could be entirely generated for PR purposes.
@Schmoker, Probably a bit of both. Since NBC already aired (and paid for) 6 episodes and probably had to pay a penalty on the other 7, TNT can get these 13 episodes at a low price. If (and that’s a huge if), TNT orders new episodes, the budget for the show will probably drop. The regular cast will probably shrink considerably as well (though, reports said the new episodes were focussing on just a few people, so they might have already done that).
Nevermind…
I’m really glad TNT picked up Southland even if it is just 13 episodes.I’ll give up watching The Good Wife for it!
I’m glad Southland is getting another shot. Hopefully TNT can make the financial numbers work – and at the very least, WBTV can keep it making some intra-corporate $$$ for them and perhaps a) sell it abroad or b) make alittle DVD $.
@ Jon
“The news about SouthLAnd doesn’t bode well for Raising the Bar or Dark Blue.”
Since TNT hasn’t ordered any more episodes, I don’t think it has any impact on either show at all.
If TNT orders a full season of episodes, then that’s another matter entirely. But since Saving Grace is on its last legs, they do have room in the schedule for Southland, Raising the Bar, and Dark Blue. And, who says that they are not going to start another night of broadcasting new programming?
I doubt well see a third season of this series but at least well get to see all of the epsiodes. Since the series hasnt been released on DVD yet, we’ll likely see a complete series DVD or Seasons 1 & 2.
My question: how long to drop the broadcast designation?
Robert, that’s a great pretzel twist you pull to declare this a failure for Southland and its fans. The show has been moved wholesale to another network with 6 unaired episodes to air first run.
The show has a new lease on life which by any definition is “saved” whether it is cancelled in 2010 or not. There is no reason to assume new production could not happen with a successful run which I imagine the network would want to green light (or not) as soon as the show appears viable (or failed on their air).
The deepest concern I have as a fan of the show is whether that decision will come on re-airing of shows from last spring or the first run episodes. I suspect the former which might be a slightly tougher hill to climb.
I don’t know what some of the animosity is really about towards this show on here. I’m just glad its coming back. People are fleeing broadcast to cable more than ever these days. People are losing interest simply over the fact that whenever they get into a new show the networks want to cancel. For example, if it wasn’t for CW’s poor execution of the comedy division, the show ‘The Game’ will very much likely still be on the air. I have been disappointed with the decisions the big networks have been pulling for sometime that I’ve pretty much have given up on all of them.
Doesn’t PBS have a larger national audience than the CW? I sometimes wonder if PBS was included, would that finally convince the CW to quit.
I know it hard for the CW to understand, there is more to TV than 18-34 women.
@Scribe: What has the CW executed right? The network has shaped up to be an epic fail, to quote the text generation.
But that’s another argument.
But I’m glad to see a network didn’t succeed in killing a good show. I’ll definitely be watching Southland.